How Fast Can A House Cat Run ?

How Fast Can A House Cat Run ?

Cats are admirable pets, and almost everyone admires a cat’s walk that is super agile, and filled with grace and speed. Cats are not as fast as their larger counterparts like lions and cheetahs when it comes to running around or while chasing or playing. Probably one reason for this is that domestic or house cats do not have the need to chase down preys to eat. And, evolutionary reasons have impacted to a large extent the proportion of musculature of the hind legs that the large cats have.

However, cats can run really pretty fast by normal standards! Experts say that the average speed of a house cat is 30 miles or 48 kilometers per hour.

The body structure and shape of a cat gives it the ability to gather speed. While running, a cat’s posture takes an expanded position with the legs fully in the air, and this is quickly followed by bringing them down and back. The spine of the cats is extremely flexible allowing the rear end to move even when the forelimbs are rested on the ground. Cats take longer strides by stretching their trunks fully. When the cat reaches its full speed, the overlapping distance between its right and left legs gets smaller allowing the cat to cover greater distance.

Not only speed, cats can also be very accurate when they jump around as their faces are flat-shaped and their eyes are capable of working together to get a three dimensional view of things around.

Cats have muscles all over the body. There are approximately 500 skeletal muscles, some say it is 517, whereas the humans have around 650. In the ears alone, cats have 32 muscles that help control the outer ear. This helps the cat to rotate its ears 180 degrees. The movement is faster than that of a dog as cats can catch the direction of the sound 10 times faster. More..